Grammar and Dance
Monday, April 15th, 2002 02:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranthI went to my first proper ballet on Friday: Prokofiev's Cinderella, Moscow City Ballet, Richmond Theatre. (Because a friend was playing in the orchestra, since you ask). The music had all sorts of snippets from The Love of Three Oranges, musically speaking. The costumes were colourful and indefinably Slavic. And I didn't know what I was looking at.
I was watching an artistic performance which I don't have the vocabulary to describe in any kind of shorthand. I'd have to say 'and then the ballerina caught the raised hand of the dancer playing the Prince, and lifted up to balance on the tips of her toes' - even I know this is en pointe - and it wouldn't be exact enough for anyone to visualise.
And because I didn't have the words, it was also more difficult to know what I was looking at: which bits were especially brilliant, which were standard repertoire? I couldn't analyse what I was seeing and spot patterns, because I didn't know enough to label the patterns when I saw them.
I wonder how much this happens when I listen to music, or look at pictures - art that I do have the vocabulary for, and - furthermore - a vocabulary so ingrained that I find it very difficult to imagine not being able (for example) to pick out a recurring theme in a symphony.
Also wondering how I'd have reacted if I'd known the music better: would I have focussed on that to the exclusion of the dance?
I was watching an artistic performance which I don't have the vocabulary to describe in any kind of shorthand. I'd have to say 'and then the ballerina caught the raised hand of the dancer playing the Prince, and lifted up to balance on the tips of her toes' - even I know this is en pointe - and it wouldn't be exact enough for anyone to visualise.
And because I didn't have the words, it was also more difficult to know what I was looking at: which bits were especially brilliant, which were standard repertoire? I couldn't analyse what I was seeing and spot patterns, because I didn't know enough to label the patterns when I saw them.
I wonder how much this happens when I listen to music, or look at pictures - art that I do have the vocabulary for, and - furthermore - a vocabulary so ingrained that I find it very difficult to imagine not being able (for example) to pick out a recurring theme in a symphony.
Also wondering how I'd have reacted if I'd known the music better: would I have focussed on that to the exclusion of the dance?
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Cultural novelty
Date: Monday, April 15th, 2002 06:38 am (UTC)Surprised that you'd never been to a ballet -- even I've been to a ballet (Russian production of Swan Lake, seen in China, since you ask).
P.S. New user photo is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cool!
no subject
Date: Monday, April 15th, 2002 08:00 am (UTC)Having never been to a ballet, I'm not sure whether or not it would have been different for you if you had been familiar with the music.
For me, being more familiar with the music would be both a pro and a con. The pro is when you reached a specific part in the music that you knew, you could time it, comparing the pacing of the dance with the music. If it worked together well, it would be absolutely brilliant and you'd be enchanted by the whole thing. The con for me is, I tend to become absorbed by the music, so I would have listened and closed my eyes, forgetting that I was supposed to be watching. I'm a completely aurally inclined individual and it's easy for me to get lost in sound.
That is actually one of the reasons that I close my eyes whenever they play 'Aniron' in LotR. (No, not because it's Arwen and Aragorn. *g*) The music is so beautiful fo me, my eyes close involuntarily and I just let myself become immersed in Enya's voice.
But now I'm rambling, so I'll apologize and shut up. ;-)